Armies of Gielinor/Saradomin Strikes
The Saradomin Strikes campaign settles during the God Wars period, where Saradomin tries to claim the Misthalin and Asgarnia kingdoms from Guthixian, Zamorakian and Zarosian forces. The campaign begins in Deus Ex, and completing an area unlocks all its neighboring areas for play, with a few exceptions: Brothers-Birds does not unlock Arcanists; Draynor Hill and Brothers-Escort does not unlock Flight. Tactics Units Monk- Your early priest, good if you are against lots of enemies that hit low. Paladin- Useful for spamming portals and taking down 5 HP units. Saradomin Owl- Useful for protecting your own units against melee. Saradomin Ranger- Ace at taking down birds, but rubbish against Bandos. The only good use for Bandos is in Founding order. Use these as blockades. White Knight- Very good paladin, get these when you are against 20+ health enemies. Saradomin Mage- See above, but better against Bandos. Use a White Knight in front of a Ranger in front of a Mage, and you are impenetrable. Lion- Powerful warrior that is a little slow. Use when faced against Rangers and possibly, Mages. Unicorn- Swift skirmish unit that can be used to hunt and kill barbarians. Centaur- Very fast ranger. Good against locusts and the like. Priest- Only use them if you can't keep your monks alive, or if you need a spiritual barrier. Very expensive compared to a monk. Not recommended to use. Icyene- Use it only when you need it. Very expensive, but is the best unit. Very effective to Bandos and few Zamorak units. Special Units Black Guard Dwarves 6 Barrow Brothers (Guthan, Torag, Verac, Dharok, Ahrim, and Karil) Spells/Items Healing Aura - Not very helpful, but great for keeping Litara alive. Greater Healing Aura - See Healing Aura. Chain Rune Armour - Not very helpful, rather wait till you get the upgrade. Blessed Rune Armour - Extremely helpful, and acts as almost as good as vampric blood. Fantastic when in the forest, or with a spiritual barrier. Rejuvenate - Extremely helpful whenever a unit needs to attack again. Granite Armour - Use when keeping a important unit alive against multiple enemies. 'Ring of Life '- Helpful to keep a barbarian chieftain alive. Missions Deus Ex (Image File here) *Difficulty: 1 *Reward: Paladin Strategy: You will have 2 armies a north-east one and a south-east one. move the south east one across the bridge to the north. when the demon gets close stall and attack him. while doing so move your icyene east and north (you will get hit once) and make a bee-line to the demon and easily kill it. Notes: It is possible to complete the mission with a perfect score of 1333 in 1 turn and take no damage with rejuvenation.<--- strategy of doing it: move iceyene next to the ranger and kill it rejuvinate and attack the demon meanwhile send all your other units as far away as possible ,end turn and the 1 ranger wont hit iceyene trough the woods and the others wont hit the other units then finish the demon The Cost of War (Image File here) *Difficulty: 1 *Reward: Monk Strategy: You can try to kill the goblins, but you will fail. Make like 2 paladins and a barbarian and head east toward the tower and villages. Defend your barbarian from the goblins. back at your portal make a barbarian to capture those villages north of your portal. Bandos will more than likely rush you. Try to kill the ork first for he will never make another one. Now build very slowly northeastern with paladins. It should be obvious from there. Notes: Exodus (Image File here) *Difficulty: 2 *Reward: Saradomin Ranger Strategy: You will need to make 2 armies a north and a south one. The south army: don't waste too much mana over here. you just need to distract the ranger and mage a little bit till the elven rangers can attack it. other than that the south army is quite useless. The north army: Sea slugs.... well start by getting the portal then try to capture 1 building and exterminate the slugs. After that, its an uphill battle. Resources are low so try to take out the mages that will be made. Then cover/ capture that portal and "distract" the mages so the pikemen will kill it. Notes: If you are having problems keeping the Elf Songstress alive, Granite Armour may help. Use it on the Songstress around turn 8 when two ranged enemies are in range to attack her. Founding Order (Image File here) *Difficulty: 2 *Reward: White Knight Strategy: First, send a few paladins to kill a few goblins. DO NOT kill the goblins randomly. Check the path so that it does not block the barbarians way. Send the monk to attack the goblin priest. Once SOME goblins are dead, send your barbarian and move nearest to the fort, then cast rejuvenate and move into the fort. your barbarian should be inside the fort by now. Block off the left and right entrances. Slowly build up your army and fight your way to the portals, while leaving some defence for your top exit(this is not needed if their are no more to kill at the top). If you put some rangers behind the Paladins you can assist with the blockade, but make sure Just Spawned Paladins can reach the enemy when their brethren fall. Notes: A maximum of five goblins can be killed by the player on the first turn. If you summon rangers then the Ogre shaman will come. Ogre shaman is very rare for Bandos to summon. Do not summon units when not needed. If you can save mana then unleash it all at once, you're chances of winning are greatly increased as Bandos will keep summoning even though he doesn't need it If any ogre or ogresses manage to go into you're fort, killing them is your top priority. If you leave the ogre inside for more than 3 turns, you lose. Into the Occult (Image File here) *Difficulty: 2 *Reward: Rejuvenate Strategy: Send all your troops to the east portal use the rangers to take out the gargoyles. Capture the portal. Now you will have to fight back so you can catch the surrounding buildings. Then head south-west and capture those buildings. Finally, just rush the portal then kill Pazuzu. DO NOT attack Pazuzu until you have the other two portals Notes: Pazuzu will move towards your starting portal and incinerate it after that he will just stay in the little stone circle until he is attacked then he will try and take your other portals Druid Circle (Image File here) *Difficulty: 3 *Reward: Chain Rune Armour Strategy: Capture surrounding buildings and send your fighting troops to the northern woods and kill the wolves and druids when they come through. Make 1-2 rangers to take out any possible enemies gnomecopters. Now make an army and head though the north woods to the villages there. At the same time, defend the eastern entrance after you capture the northern villages and head east-ward with your army. Make an army at the eastern entrance and go east to capture the villages. Then, head north-ward for the portal. Notes: Draynor Hill (Image File here) *Difficulty: 3 *Reward: Granite Armour Strategy: Send your Chieftain across the bridge to capture the 3 villages there, making sure to stay out of range of the Guards (Cyclops and Ogre Shaman). Meanwhile, send the Paladins and Monk eastward to deal with enemies coming from that direction. Also make a barbarian to capture the east villages. Next, create a blockade at the mountain pass near your portal; A Paladin will suffice, but you may want a Ranger and/or a Knight too. Once you are ready, eliminate the northern Cyclops and Shaman. To do this, you can send a Paladin into range of the cyclops, but stay out of it's paralyzing range. Have some Rangers ready to ambush the Cyclops when it attacks the Paladin, after which the Shaman can be beaten easily. You will now be able to take the northern route to the enemy portal. Make an army and rush the portal to win. Notes: The blockade you made should be kept up for the ENTIRE mission. Also, this mission can be completed without Rangers, but this will be more difficult, and result in a lower score. You can win the mission even without killing the cyclops as long as a barbarian takes over Bandos's portal. Port Sarim (Image File here) *Difficulty: 3 *Reward: Ring of Life Strategy: Start off by making some rangers and killing the locust from the south. Then head south using ranges and knights if you have them. Don't care about the Elemental of Eldinis or the tower it heads for. When your capture the south portal over the water, head east. You will need some knights and rangers on both sides since if you only have knights the opponent will make locust and when you have rangers the opponent will make a lot of crocodiles. Once you get the east portal, you do not need to kill the Elemental of Eldinis, as the mission should end automatically. Notes: This level is very hard without White Knights. Ice Mountain (Image File here) *Difficulty: 3 *Reward: +5% Mana per turn Strategy: First push the dwarfs towards the dragons to kill them, this lures the dragons farther up, away from you. Next make two barbarians, send one to the northeastern village, and send one to the south western village. IMPORTANT: STAY OUT OF THE DRAGONS REACH. Meaning always make sure your characters are never lines up with the side of the box, always make it so that the dragons would have to move twice to hit you, otherwise they WILL attack your men. Next make a monk and bring him as close as he possibly can. Next turn move your barbarians that are going to capture the houses again (Keep them from the dragons reach). Make a Ranger and Barabarian and move them close to the monk (Keep these also from the dragons reach). Typically the dragons will slowly inch towards Zamorak's men, every time they do, move up. Don't take the house by the mountain range yet. Now after this, the game may go differently. You may have to play it a couple times, just move carefully away from the dragons and make to the portal, don't stop tell your barbarian takes it. Notes: For the achievement, Run, Dwarves, Escape!, you need rejuvenate and ring of life. Barbarism Starts at Home (Image File here) *Difficulty: 3 *Reward: Barbarian Spearwoman Strategy: A very easy way to beat this level is by rushing at Pazuzu. First, make the left paladin attack him. Then make the ranger attack Pazuzu and use rejuvenate on her to attack again. Then move the barbarian on one of the houses, and make the monk, paladin and white knight go as close as possible. After this, create 2 more paladins and send them as close to Pazuzu as possible. End turn. After this, make all units that are within range fire on Pazuzu, the ranger being the last. Use a ring of life on her for safety. Make sure all of the allies are outside the gargayole's range. End turn. Attack Pazuzu again with everything you got, and he should die. Notes: Brothers - Valley of Death (Image File here) *Difficulty: 3 *Reward: Blessed Rune Armour Strategy: Take your army to the interjections and clump together. Last a "wave" then head for the nearest portal. Be careful for he will make a mage and head for Torag. Then just take Guthan to kill the mage. Capture the portal then spam rangers and head north-east ward. Send a barbarian to the house cluster so the comp can't make a mage a turn. Once your take its mana it should be easy. Notes: Brothers - Birds (Image File here) *Difficulty: 3 *Reward: Saradomin Owl Strategy: You will be swarmed with owls on this level. Try to make the formation of Karil in the front, monk behind Karil, and Verac behind the monk. Have the ranger on one of the sides by the monk. To advance one space each turn, have Karil attack the owl in front of the ranger. Advance the ranger a space, and have the ranger attack the bird in front of Karil. Then advance Karil, the monk, and Verac. Verac will level up immensely during this stage and paladins will most likely die. Notes: Owls use 3 "clone 5" every turn. Army of Darkness (Image File here) *Difficulty: 3 *Reward: Greater Healing Aura Strategy: Do not immediately send your starting units to Zemouregal! All of your beginning troops are below 5 strength, so they will not be able to do much damage. The best thing to do is to quickly send a monk or two to rejuvenate the weakened soldiers, because 4 paladins around a monk can take out an almost innumerable amount of the skeletons. Meanwhile, send white knights or unicorns from your portal with some monks towards Zemouregal. They will be boosted as you go along if Zemouregal builds armies near them. Notes: All it takes is just 2 rangers at full health + a rejuvenate to deal 30 HP. If you are lucky enough to not get skeletons near you, it is possible to get a score of 1333. Brothers - Escort (Image File here) *Difficulty: 4 *Reward: +5% Mana per turn Strategy: First, capture the houses near you. Make sure all your units are out of sight. Your going to need 2 armies. One on the northwest and the other on the southeast. Make a small team on the northwest, to distract most of Zamorak's troops. Make another small one on the southeast, and rush to the other portal, quickly BEFORE Zamorak gets a hold of it. Take advantage of Ahrim's large range capacity.After you get the Northeastern portal, make a army and rush to Zamorak's portal. Make sure the barrow brothers does not die. Keep monks around Dharok, in case of an attack by mages. Another strategy involve sending your paladins to block the bridge at Ahrim. Swap to white knights when you can but capture your villages first. Use Dharok and his initial forces and capture the tower nearby but spawn a monk to keep Dharok alive. Zamorak will probably take the north eastern portal, don't worry. Send Ahrim's barbarians west to the cluster of houses and take them. With these taken you will be getting considerably more mana and the enemy will be getting a lot less. After you have a sizable army send white knights up to take the northeastern portal. Send Dharok and a small force with him back into the fray and block the other portal. If done right you can win quite quickly Notes: This can be a very hard mission because Zamorak's starting units include melee, range, and magic classes. Arcanists (Image File here) *Difficulty: 4 *Reward: Saradomin Mage Strategy: The basic strategy is to keep the jade vine to a manageable size until after you deal with the initial 2 wolves, 2 terrorbirds, and 2 gnomecopters. The jade vine not only prevents monsters from advancing, but it also costs the computer 10 mana per jade vine each turn. When you're ready, try to make waves of knights in the front and rangers in the back to take down the cannons and the other units. Beware of the ent, I couldn't see it in the forest and lost my barbarian to it, costing me more time. Notes: Don't rush to the jade vines. The moss giant will break free and dismantle you. If you wait too long and the computer accumulates a lot of mana, it will summon multiple Ents and tear apart your army. Hold the Line (Image File here) *Difficulty: 4 *Reward: Priest Strategy: Send your chieftain to the close portal and capture it. Then get to the eastern portal near the priests. Watch out for that demon. Use the rangers on it then the knights. In tough times, use the priest to attack. Watch out for the skeletons and the necromancer. Make 1 or 2 paladins to hold him off. Once you get the portal near the priests make another ranger. Fight off the weak werewolf and whatever else that comes. At your home portal, capture some of the buildings around to help. I just sent a white knight to block the portal Notes: The priest's special ability was taken away due to a patch. Previously,they could use the barrier ability like a normal priest. By doing this to both priests,you would not have to worry about protecting them. Slaughter of the Druids (Image File here) *Difficulty: 4 *Reward: Lion Strategy: Build up your army slowly, but quickly enough before Zamorak conquers the Druids. Sending a paladin to kill off the druids' barbarians (at least 3 come down; kill when out of the range of the cannon). Send your chieftain to get the two villages in the northwest corner; Get them and stay unseen. Make a small army of knights, and mages to cross the bridge and IMMEDIATELY take out the cannon. Take the portal (by this time, the druids will be, or should be, on Zamorak's portal) and send your troops to finish off the campaign. Notes: Surprisingly, within 30 turns, you can get a gold star with at least a 1200 score! Brothers - Bridge the Lum (Image File here) *Difficulty: 5 *Reward: Centaur Strategy: Guthan and Torag The first thing you should do is use Torag and Guthan and move them just out of range of the mage. they will aproach next turn. Use either Torag or Guthan (preferably not Guthan, he has anti-mage armor) to kill/wound the knight, use Guthan to kill the werewolf, after moving your max, rejuvenate, and hit the mage, killing it. After that, the 4 villages are yours for a few turns, until they use a Gargoyle. Prepare for it with a Saradomin ranger. Don't send any barbarians yet. The others Move Ahrim up to the middle bridge, where he'll be very useful later. Don't use barbarians until the left bridge is clean. Dharok should support the bridge on the right, Verac doesn't matter much yet, move him closer to the center. Karil can flank Dharok on the right bridge to one-hit knight, etc. After Ahrim is met with strong archer support on the center bridge, retreat him and bring up verac, the slow one. Verac, in addition to your now free Saradomin ranger should hold off the middle bridge until the rangers are dead. The right bridge SHOULD be free within a few turns, so you can withdraw Karil to the center, completing the combat triangle. Within a few turns, you won't even need the brothers. you can choose to either advance them to the portals, or use your now considerable mana count to spam knights and rangers on them. Remember: DO NOT advance them until you have at least 150 mana per turn. You may use barbarians after the left area is completely clear. After the 8th turn, you may need to deviate from this strategy in order to save one of the brothers. by then you should be about to capture your third village on the left. Icyenes are very useful on the level. Also, in the middle there is a road in between two swamps. If you can get a high levelled monster or owl in front of them, and all rangers/mages are out of range, and a melee unit is in front of you, they'll get stuck. Allowing you to build a huge army. Peddewa (Image File here) *Difficulty: 5 *Reward: Healing Aura Strategy: Capture the buildings and the tower right away, but don't capture the village farthest away from you, because its a trap. Spam mages at the beginning and kill the hellhound, demon, and the black knights, from the east. Once you kill the black knights, send a barbarian to the north portal. Now you have to keep fighting to the east. Use the best units you can. Lions, Mages, and Rangers are good. After you capture the north portal make a ranger there and head east kill the lonely mage and take that portal. Finally, Zaros makes a weak army by the south-east portal and moves it northward. Make a counter army and capture that portal. Then simply rush the inside. Notes: Stay out of the guard ranger's and mage's sight. Your army eastward should never break Flight (Image File here) *Difficulty: 5 *Reward: Unicorn Strategy: Have Litara move as quickly as possible towards the temple. DO NOT use anything else. Move the barbarian closest to the edge, out of harms way. Do not bother moving the paladins. When Litara gets near the cyclops, use rejuvenation to get away, and avoid sight from the nearby ranger. A werewolf should come by the barbarian, summon a paladin, don't attack, and summon a white knight to kill the werewolf. Have Litara go to the temple and use granite armor. Then rune blessed armor. Then healing aura, and you should have a very high score. The only damage you should of taken was 9! Another strategy involve attacking immediately Pazuzu with 2 paladins. Have 2 unicorns lure the cyclops out. Then use rejuvenation to get the 3rd unicorn out. Use rune blessed armour on this unicorn afterwards. Keep producing Saradomin Owls. Have all units go towards the temple, taking care to avoid the guards. When Pazuzu is in range of the unicorn, have the unicorn (preferably in the forest) attack Pazuzu. Then gave all units continuously attacking Pazuzu, taking care to not let Pazuzu attack Litara directly (by using Saradomin Owls to block the path). Pazuzu should die before he reaches the temple. Notes: Zaros Temple (Image File here) *Difficulty: 5 *Reward: Icyene Strategy: Send three barbarians to capture the nearby villages. Send at least 2 paladins and eventually a white knight to capture Bandos's portal and tower. Bandos will send barbarians towards the Menaphites. If you succeed in capturing Bandos's lower portal, you will have to "intervene" in the battle between Zamorak and Zaros. Zaros will be defending his area from Zamorak, so you are free to take any structures available. Spawn lions, mages, and a few unicorns. send the lions and mages at Zamorak and send the unicorns at Zaros. Kill the necromancers first, then the skeletons. Put a unicorn on the portal. Then just rush the lions to Zamorak's portal to win. Notes: This is very easy with Icyenes. You just need 2 to rush at Zamorak and Zaros's portals. You do not need to be alert against the Menaphites and Bandos since they only summon low level units. Although, you still need to be careful. Achievements for this campaign Trivia *In Deus Ex, the Zamorak team leader is named Zebub. This is most likely a reference to the demon Beelzebub who is a demon from hell in the Hebrew religion. *Deus Ex is possibly a reference to the phrase Deus Ex Machina. Deus Ex is latin for "god from the", so Deus Ex Machina is "God from the machine." *Exodus is Latin for "exit", and is also the final form in the ATA before black belt. *Polyphemus, a cyclops in the mission "Flight" is the name of Poseidon's son in Homer's Odyssey. Unfortunately, the cyclops in the mission can see and instead makes units quake in fear (unable to move). *There are Blue Dragons in the mission Ice Mountain. In the same update that released the Saradomin Strikes campaign,Red dragons were changed to blue dragons. However, shortly after that they were changed back in to Red dragons again. *The missions named Arcanists and Hold the Line have probably had their name based on the Arcanists and Hold the Line games of the same names. *In Into the Occult, Barbarianism Starts at Home and Flight, the Gargoyle leader Pazuzu has the same name Professor Farnsworth called his Gargoyle in Futurama, which in both cases is a reference to a king of the demons from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology.